The European Journalism Centre and Mirko Lorenz are conducting a survey into data journalism. Over to you.

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As a lone blogger how much legal protection do you have? No more than anyone else, when it comes to libel, contempt of court law and so on, except that people are more likely to pay attention to large media organisations.

But there are many instances where bloggers have lost a lot of time and money over legal disputes. Last week, for example, journalist and blogger Dave Osler finally saw an end to a legal battle that consumed three years of his life, after he was sued for libel by the political activist Johanna Kaschke. Despite being refused the right to appeal the strike-out of the Osler case, she is still planning to appeal another High Court decision that ended her libel claim against Alex Hilton and John Gray.

If all individual bloggers worried about getting into trouble too much, we’d write much less than we do. Even big scary cases aren’t a deterrent: Dave Osler is still blogging. I was personally surprised by the results of my survey of 71 small online publishers this summer. Not that only 27 per cent had been involved in legal disputes (that was about what I expected) but that over half were satisfied with the number of legal resources available.

Personally, the grey areas of law trouble me and I don’t think there could be enough support: I’d like to see more organised structures for legal help, a sort of Citizens Advice Bureau for bloggers, if you like. Informal advice is already spreading via social networks, as lawyers increasingly use Twitter and blogs to join the conversation.

As I reported on my site Meeja Law, one hyperlocal blogger who was accused of breach of copyright asked for legal advice via Twitter: “Two separate media lawyers confirmed (for free) that I’d done nothing wrong. I also contacted [hyperlocal organisation] Talk About Local for advice, and they told me the same.”

Talk About Local has published several media law guides online (eg. this one on defamation) and the organisation’s founder William Perrin offers some frank legal advice ahead of a legal session at last weekend’s London Local Neighbourhoods Online Unconference:

…just about the best legal advice, which very few follow is to set up a 
limited company and keep the website inside that. Then you don’t lose 
your house to a nutter under defamation law….

Another concern of mine is the lack of transparency of courts data, something I’ve discussed at length here. I think bloggers should be able to access more information about cases; at the very least, the Ministry of Justice needs to consider its outmoded contempt of court law that is ill-equipped to deal with the online age.

In the coming months, I’d like to build up the conversation in this area and think about how we might approach some of these issues. If you’d like to be part of this informal online ‘working group’ please consider joining the Help Me Investigate challenge at this link (request membership here), or discussing via the OJB Facebook group.

UPDATE [Paul Bradshaw]: I’ve created a LinkedIn group as a place for people to more openly discuss how to take this forward.

Judith Townend (@jtownend on Twitter) is a PhD research student at City University London and freelance journalist.

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I’ve already blogged about the survey I did of 200 blogging journalists and recorded five podcasts, but if you want the version I wrote for the latest edition of Nieman Reports, you can now read it here.

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The first annual U.S. mobile phone user survey by Azuki Systems Inc. suggests that the long-heralded move to the mainstream mobile web is getting closer*. Some choice quotes (via Research Brief):

Almost 80% of those surveyed said they wished it were easier to access information from the Internet on their mobile phones, and an equal percentage stated they wished it were easier to access rich media on their mobile phones.

62% of respondents indicating they either own or will own [a smart phone] in the next 12 months.

 

52% access the Web via their mobile phones, and 35 to 44 year-olds are leveraging this technology the most, with 60% spending time each week surfing the Web

25% access video on their mobile phones, with 88% of this group spending less than two hours/week, which indicates a growing appetite for rich media with shorter duration viewing patterns

25% of mobile users are accessing social networking sites from their mobile devices with one in seven respondents between the ages of 23 to 34 doing so for more than two hours/week. Sixty-four percent of those surveyed reported that they would share content via their mobile phone with their contacts from social networking sites if it were easier

65% would take advantage of mobile phones that had location tracking capabilities that would present them with promotions for local businesses

 

*Scepticism alert: Azuki Systems business is in “enabling Interactive Mobile Media Services for content publishers and mobile operators looking to expand and monetize rich media viewership” The survey was conducted with “over 275″ U.S. mobile consumers of “varying demographic backgrounds”. Does that mean 276 mobile users, and one or two was old and poor?

If you know of other data on mobile phone usage and the web, let me know. In the meantime, there are always my Delicious bookmarks on the subject.

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The third part of the results of my survey of blogging journalists looks at how blogging has affected how stories are researched.

As journalists move onto gathering information for a story, the scope of easily accessible sources is made broader by journalists’ involvement in blogs.

It may be that in some cases the process of ‘having an idea in public’, as highlighted in part two, means that story research is increasingly done by readers before, or alongside, that done by the journalist. Once they begin pursuing a story journalists are using the blog format as a way to ‘put the call out’ for information and sources while they work.

Although journalists asking members of the public for information on a story is nothing new, the nature of the relationship appears to be different, in that it is a two-way, ongoing process:

“On hot-button stories where our readers are asking a lot of questions, we post updates every time we make a phone call. For example, [a company] declared bankruptcy and the new owner wouldn’t take the previous owner’s gift cards. Our readers were peeved and hounding us to do something. The corporate folks weren’t saying anything so we didn’t have any new information to report. Because we didn’t have any new info, we didn’t write anything in the paper. But on our blog, we would post updates at least daily to tell people when we left a message and if we had heard back yet. We eventually scored an interview with the new CEO and posted it in its entirety on our site. Another reporter saw it and called us. We swapped info. Our readers also post links to other stories on the topic from other news orgs.” (Respondent 63, US, newspapers)

In some examples, this collaboration becomes a form of crowdsourcing:

“Last year, there was a vote in the Senate to oust Renan Calheiros, the chairman of the house. The votes were kept in secret, and he was absolved. Interviewed, much more senators would say they had voted to oust Calheiros than the votes the proposal actually got. So, I proposed that readers contacted the senators to ask them about their reasons.” (Respondent 24, Brazil, freelance)

As highlighted previously, blogging journalists report finding it easier to find sources who don’t come from a government agency or professional association, and to keep up with events they are not participating in.

Many post links to original material and ongoing updates as they research, or to reports on stories that they do not have time to follow up.

But for some the pressure to publish meant more reliance on rumours, and less rigorous research, with the onus placed on blog readers to clarify and fact-check.

On a practical level the actual process of newsgathering is also changing as a result of the demands of the blog.

Journalists report being more likely to gather multimedia material such as images, video and audio to post on the blog – or, in the case of broadcast journalists, to gather more material than they used to, as there is now a platform for material that wouldn’t otherwise make it to broadcast.

“It ensures avoiding that trap of TV reporting,” noted one: “one sequence, two interviews and we have a story without digging deeper.” (Respondent 156, Belgium, TV).

More detail is shown in the following tables:

Read Part 4: Blogging and news production here.

Has blogging affected how you gather information on a story? Let me know in the comments.

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The second part of the results of my survey of blogging journalists looks at how blogs have affected how journalists generate story ideas and leads.

Blogs and news ideas: “The canary in the mine”

For blogging journalists, blogs have disrupted the traditional processes of journalism in a number of ways.

Respondents spoke of a clearer perception of audience needs and interests as a result of comments and visitor statistics, which in turn fed into the choice of topics and angles to cover.

In some cases ideas were posted by journalists on their blogs and the development of the story guided by reader feedback, often changing in the process, or in some cases resulting in stories being covered which would otherwise fallen through Tuchman’s (1978) ‘news net’.

There is evidence of an increasing disintermediation of the editor’s role – understandably, as the editorial role of determining the reader’s identity and needs is undermined when writers, through their blogs, have a closer, more immediate and reliable access to that information.

The mindset of thinking for a single medium – typically print, radio or television – was also changing. Some spoke of thinking in terms of multimedia or interactivity, in turn opening new approaches to some ideas and leads.

The often highlighted (McNair, 1998; Allan, 2004; Deuze 2008 [PDF]) reliance of journalists on public relations firms, pressure groups and diary events is also being affected: respondents spoke of a broadening of the range of contacts and of the sources of ideas for potential stories.

Many mentioned getting story leads from comments on the blog or through private communication initiated via the blog. Others noted the ease of accessing contacts through other blogs, and the ability to build trust with sources through their online output, all of which represents an important challenge to traditional theories of news processes which rely on routinisation, predictability, and an “understanding that society is bureaucratically structured [which] furnishes the reporter with a ‘map of relevant knowers’ for newsworthy topics.” (Allan, 2004, p62). For some reporters, that map is being redrawn along networked lines:

“As a freelancer, blogging gives me a headstart on my MSM [mainstream media] colleagues. While they are plowing through press releases and assignments from editors, I do my digging online. Also, bloggers themselves are often great stories because they are passionate, knowledgeable and accessible.” (Respondent 174, US, freelance)

At the same time there is a framing of blogging and the blogosphere in old media terms. For many respondents, the most important change brought by blogs was an increased need for speed. Spotting trends early, or following the “chatter”, were also identified, suggesting that the ‘herd instinct’ of mainstream media remains.

Blogs are sometimes “the canaries in the coal mine,” noted one. (Respondent 69, US, Online). Some respondents also spoke of using blogs in the same way as they had previously relied on the trade press for leads and expertise.

Finally, journalists used their blogs (and microblogging platforms such as Twitter) as a way to source case studies, in the same way as previously done through other channels.

More detail in the following table:

Has blogging affected how you generate or find story ideas? Let me know in the comments.

Part 3: Blogs and story research is here.

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Back in June I distributed an online survey to find out how journalists with blogs felt their work had been affected by the technology. 200 blogging journalists responded in total, from 30 different countries.

The responses paint an interesting picture: in generating ideas and leads, in gathering information, in news production and post-publication, and most of all in the relationship with the audience, the networked, iterative and conversational nature of the blog format is changing how many journalists work in a number of ways.

However, this is by no means universal, and there are notable variations between industries and sectors.

Over the next week I will be publishing the results on the Online Journalism Blog, covering a different stage of the journalistic process in each post.  But to begin with, here’s some academic context:

Blogs and journalism: a little background

Blogs have become part of the editorial furniture. As of this year, 70% of US newspapers (PEJ, 2008), 85% of UK news organisations, and 44% of European news organisations (Oriella PR Network, 2008) were offering journalist-authored blogs, and all the signals from editors and management suggested these figures would continue to rise.

A number of studies have focused on how newsroom cultures have reacted to the rise of the online newsroom (Boczkowski 2004, Friend & Singer 2007, Paterson & Domingo, 2008), and how news organisation blogs themselves have adopted the format (Singer, 2005; Robinson, 2006); and much has been written of the potential of blogs for journalism as a whole (Gillmor 2004, Wall 2005, Beckett 2008), but few have looked at the perceptions of journalists themselves of how the blogging has affected their processes – a gap this research aimed to address.

Although blogs have existed for over a decade, in their short history the format has undergone a number of generic developments: beginning as lists of links to similar sites, then becoming more diary-like, with accompanying cults of personality (Blood, 2000) and more recently increasingly adopted by news organisations, who have started blogs by their own journalists, employed bloggers on their staff, teamed up with blogging and citizen journalism operations (Gant, 2007), or targeted them for takeovers (The Outlook 2007, MacManus 2008).

It might be argued that this has in turn affected the generic qualities of blogs once more, and more recently there have been suggestions that blogging has lost its relational focus in the jostle for attention (MacManus, 2008), or that successful bloggers curb their creativity in the consciousness of a wider audience (Lowrey & Latta, in Paterson & Domingo, 2008) while much of the personal material that was previously published on blogs is now being published on ‘lifestreaming’ and ‘microblogging’ platforms like Twitter (Perez, 2008).

Of particular interest to this research is what has happened to journalistic processes in this meeting of cultures, particularly as some theorists have argued journalism is in a process of adapting in the face of technological, social and economic changes (Lowrey, 2006; Wall 2005; Robinson 2006).

Lowrey (2006) sees blogging as an occupation, noting that bloggers see themselves as part of a community that shares values, rituals and language, organising conferences, and exploring codes of ethics. As Singer notes (2005), professional journalists have had to negotiate this occupational culture alongside their own, and these cultures differ in important ways.

Blogs, for example, are typically opinionated, while US journalism at least aspires to objectivity (this is not the case in the UK – see Hampton, 2008); blogs treat the audience as a co-creator, while traditional journalism treats them as a passive recipient; and whereas blog journalism is incomplete and fragmented, traditional journalism is structured and closed (Lowrey 2006; Wall, 2005: 162).

Ultimately, Lowrey argues, it is “the organisation of production [that] is the most fundamental distinction between journalism and blogging” (2006: 480), and this is what this research is primarily concerned with.

Methodology

To consider whether journalists feel blogging has affected their working processes an online survey was distributed in June and July 2008. A self-completing survey method was chosen due to its efficiency, scalability and global reach (Robson, 2002). A diverse range of distribution channels, both public and internal, were used in an attempt to attract a diversity of respondents, and both open and closed questions were used to draw a large response and allow respondents to answer in their own terms (Bryman, 2001).

Respondents came from all sectors of the news industry. Almost half of respondents worked in the newspaper industry, and a third were online-only or freelance. Television, radio and magazine journalists accounted for the lowest proportions. Half of respondents worked in the US or Canada, and a further fifth in the UK, with the remainder coming from mainland Europe, South America, Australia, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

The journalists covered a wide range of sectors, and most covered more than one. Local journalism made up the largest proportion (43%), but media and technology correspondents also contributed heavily. Along with a number of well-represented areas such as business, politics, lifestyle and culture, there was a ‘long tail’ of small numbers of respondents covering ’Other’ areas ranging from education and health to travel and the environment.

In analysing the data I have attempted to take these factors into account and to use the differences between industries and sectors as a valid finding in itself, rather than focus on the  figures coming from the entire sample. It is important to note that generalising from this study should be done with caution, given the diversity of nationality, industry, sector and blogging experience of respondents. The study is intended to highlight a number of areas that warrant further research.

The study takes as its structure the three elements identified by Quinn and Lamble (2007) as constituting the basic parts of the journalistic process: generating ideas, gathering information, and production. It also looks at the relationship with the audience, and post-publication, both of which are frequently identified as areas undergoing change as a result of networked technologies such as blogging (Gillmor 2004, Bruns 2005, Beckett 2008).

If there’s any research you think would add to the context of this study, please let me know in the comments

Read the rest of the report here:

Part 2: Blogs and news ideas: “The canary in the mine”

Part 3: Blogs and story research: “We swapped info”

Part 4: Blogs and news production: “I think in hyperlinks, even when working in print”

Part 5: Post-publication: “You’ve got to be ready for that conversation”

Part 6: Blogging and the audience relationship: “The best stories are a result of incredible conversations”

Part 7: Discussion and conclusion: “The writing on the wall”

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As part of a book chapter on the subject I’m putting together some research on if and how blogging has changed our work as journalists. It would help me enormously if you could take a few minutes to complete this short survey on ‘Has blogging changed your journalism?’.

If you could pass on the link to other journalists who blog I’d be very grateful too.

It’s all anonymous, and the results will be published here as soon as I compile them, with an email notification to members of the Online Journalism Blog Facebook group.

If you want to say more on the subject, please email me at paul.bradshaw@bcu.ac.uk – or indeed, blog about it yourself and link back here so I know about it.

Many thanks.

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Andy Dickinson is conducting a short survey to gather information about how video is produced in newspaper newsrooms and who does it. The results will be made available on his blog – www.andydickinson.net.

Sounds like a great idea – it’s a one-page job so quick to fill out. Fill out the survey here.

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Online Publishing Insider reports on the rise of people’s use of content online:

“In the last four years, the share of time devoted to viewing Content online has experienced the greatest growth, increasing from 34% to 47% of time spent, outpacing all other activities. There are a number of factors contributing to Content’s rapid rise.

“More and more traditionally offline activities – from getting news, to finding entertainment information to checking the weather or traffic – are moving online. News and information sites see a consistent pattern that helps drive the growth: major news and seasonal events lead to traffic spikes, but traffic remains consistently higher even after the events have passed.”

Social networking’s rise is also significant, as is video: “according to a June 2007 OPA study, 44% of online video viewers are watching on at least a weekly basis, up from 24% in 2006″

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